Aaron Perlut,
a social-media marketer, gathered a group of mostly hirsute guys at a St. Louis restaurant seven years ago to form the American Mustache Institute, or AMI. Their goal: to fight pogonophobia (fear of facial fuzz) and raise money for charity.

Like-minded groups soon cropped up around the country. Using humor and creative hairstyling, a fraternity of facial hair sprouted. Hundreds of thousands of men grew mustaches and beards to raise funds and awareness for charities in the same way some wear ribbons and run marathons.

Although the groups battled for the same philanthropic dollars, they often supported one another.

They raised funds for charity competitions like Bearduary and Mustache March. They attended charity Beard Balls, also known as facial-hair proms. And they participated in the World Beard and Mustache Championships—a journey that has been documented by IFC reality television show "Whisker Wars."

So when the Movember Foundation, which hosts a monthlong mustache-growing contest to benefit men's health groups, came to the U.S. in 2007, the 30,000-member American Mustache Institute and other whisker devotees say they were happy to help it grow.

They promoted the group, founded in Australia ("Mo" is slang there for mustache), directing members to form fundraising teams for Movember.

"America's facial hair community has always been immensely supportive of its own," says Mr. Perlut, the full-bearded co-founder of AMI, which doesn't have a paid staff and raises less than $100,000 a year for charity. "No one wins unless we all win."

ENLARGE

But now Mr. Perlut and his allies are chafing at Movember's rapid growth. They accuse the nonprofit of taking the humor out of facial-hair fundraising and of failing to support other fuzz-friendly charity groups.

"The unfortunate byproduct of getting too big is people take themselves too seriously and lose their authenticity," says
Alex Aizenberg,
who goes by the nickname "El Beardo" and is the co-founder of Build-A-Beard, a website that chronicles the unshaven and sponsors charity balls.

For its part, Movember is keeping a stiff upper lip.

Movember traces its roots to the mustaches Chief Executive
Adam Garone
and his friends first grew in November 2003. He says the organization now sees hairy upper lips only as an annual attention-grabber to promote men's health.

Mr. Garone says his organization doesn't have a trademark on the mustache (though the name Movember is trademarked).

It encourages other charities to use facial hair as a vehicle for growth, but declines to promote or raise money for them, citing its legal charter as a nonprofit that is "predicated on raising money for men's health," he says.

The Movember Foundation raised $132 million last year with 1.1 million participants globally, up from $54,000 in 2004 with 450 participants.

In German facial hair competitions, a battle brews over grooming and bragging rights. WSJ's Anton Troianovski reports from Berlin. Originally published Sept. 22, 2011

It now boasts four offices around the world, celebrity endorsements from rapper Snoop Dogg, who has been sporting a beard of late, and lightly whiskered pop star
Justin Bieber
.

It has drawn corporate sponsorships ranging from Foster's, the Australia beer giant, to Toms, the slip-on shoe company. Last November, it projected a light creating a 40-foot blue mustache on London's Big Ben.

Charities like the Prostate Cancer Foundation, which counts Movember as one of its biggest funders, commends the group's contributions.

"Movember is becoming a very powerful force for cancer research, doing for men's health what March of Dimes did for polio," said
Jonathan Simons,
executive director of the $43 million Prostate Cancer Foundation.

The facial hair feud came to a head recently when Mr. Garone, Movember's CEO, declined to support one of AMI's biggest fundraising vehicles, the 'Stache Act, a tongue-in-cheek push to pass a $250 federal tax subsidy for every person with facial hair.

The proposal failed to gain any traction in Congress. It raised $10,000 for Millions From One, a clean-water charity, through a partnership with tax-preparation company
H&R Block
Inc.

Mr. Garone refused to endorse the campaign and told Mr. Perlut that it was inappropriate to ask Movember to publicly support the 'Stache Act, Mr. Perlut says.

As a result, AMI publicly cut ties with the group via a blog post that called Movember's cause "unquestionably commendable" but said "the organization's culture and manner in which it treats those that support it is often arrogant and rather shameful."

Mr. Garone confirms that he declined to support the 'Stache Act but says his comments were taken out of context.

"When you create a grass-roots movement of this scale, you're bound to get one person who takes exception to your opinions," Mr. Garone says. "I wish Aaron Perlut all the best and am sorry he feels he can no longer support us."

Although Mr. Garone and Mr. Perlut both say they prefer to part ways, some in the facial hair fraternity are urging reconciliation.

Sprouting facial hair is rooted in a long tradition of mutual respect and friendship, says
Phil Olsen,
founder and captain of Beard Team USA.

He is organizing the next National Beard and Mustache Championships in New Orleans in September, where people vie in various facial-hair matches such as best Dali mustache or freestyle beard.

"This is all in good fun, but it's not a joke," says Mr. Olsen, a lawyer in Tahoe City, Calif., whose bushy, chocolate-brown beard has won him such accolades as "best beard" in a 2007 contest held at the
Joyce Daze
Wild Blackberry festival in Joyce, Wash.

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